Narrator 1: American-born artist Man Ray was a close friend of Constantin Brancusi. He helped Brancusi purchase photo equipment, and even made a film portrait of the artist at Brancusi’s request. Here is one of Man Ray’s memories of the studio, included in the photographer’s 1963 autobiography.
Narrator 2: The first time I went to see the sculptor Brancusi in his studio, I was more impressed than in any cathedral.
Coming into Brancusi’s studio was like entering another world; I was overwhelmed with its whiteness and lightness. This whiteness extended to the home-built brick stove and long stovepipe. A solid white plaster cylinder six feet in diameter, cast on the floor of the studio, served as a table—with a couple of hollowed-out logs to sit on.
Soon, I became part of the circle of visitors who were welcome when we pulled the string at his door, which rang a deep-toned gong he’d installed. One night we were a party of four or five whom he had invited for dinner. It was a rare thing with him, the height of hospitality. He thrust a leg of lamb on the cinders of his stove, laid the places on the plaster disc, around which we sat and drank small glasses of Rumanian firewater while waiting for the roast. When it was ready, there was a huge dish of polenta to go with it.
The meal finished, Brancusi piled up the dishes and carried them to a corner sink, came back with a stiff steel brush and scraped the table clean and white again. Our clothes were more or less white with the plaster, but he said not to worry – it was perfectly clean stuff. Then he produced a violin and played some Rumanian folk tunes, accompanying them with a little dance.
Narrator 1: This audio was generated with automated voices.
Excerpted from: Man Ray, Self Portrait (Little, Brown and Company, 1963): 206–214.